Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The first square... yes, Square One.

I’m thankful for people who can get me to question what I believe using an insider’s approach. As in, they aren’t TRYING to get me to rethink my whole faith. Simply suggesting a new way of looking at a singular belief is enough to get the little gears in my head turning.

Right now I feel like I’m going through the very unfamiliar process of questioning every little thing I believe.

At the start of the summer every step I took felt like I was walking on a waterbed because of the countless changes taking place simultaneously. But having a few months of waterbed-treading was a great opportunity for me to grasp for what I thought I knew and to find out how stable it really was. Upon trying to get my footing this way, I ended up wildly flailing about instead. I was not that secure in what I knew to be true and needless to say I’ve been a quite the wreck - I haven’t handled it very gracefully. But what can I say! Nobody is perfect. God loves me regardless.

Anyway, I realized that I have all of this stuff in my head about God's promises and about how He feels about me, etc, but for some reason I don't actually live as if it were true, which caused all my floundering. So I decided I needed to go back to the fundamentals of what I believe, in hopes of at least understanding what it is that's keeping me from really living in the freedom Christ died and rose to give me. There’s something I’m not getting that hopefully I can eventually take hold of and continue hanging on to next time my life is in such dramatic transition.

These are only like 3% of the questions that have been circulating in my head since I figured out that I may not have been on as solid of ground as I thought...

Who am I?
God only made one of everyone, so I don't want to try to take somebody else’s spot, but I want to know who *I* am.

What does God want from me?
A relationship, but what kind?

What does God think of me? I swear, I should know this already!

What's this business about getting rewards for what I do in my lifetime?
How important is every little good thing I do?
Do the bad things I do have much weight?
What attitude am I supposed to have about my "service" to God, and do I have pure motives?
How much should I obsess about this stuff?
How much am I supposed to enjoy life? Is it bad to not enjoy life because I’m worried about doing things right? Is it bad to enjoy life too much and forget about my responsibilities?

What is grace? I know I don’t have to earn salvation, but am I not supposed to be working hard to avoid sin? What is the balance?

I don’t feel bad admitting that I really am not understanding the practicalities of God’s heart for His babies, and namely me. In fact, as uncomfortable as it is, searching is a great place to be for me because I know that God NEVER disappoints. I resolved to read the New Testament from the beginning, just looking for the basics (hum… are my questions even about basic things? I don’t even know what is basic and what is not anymore!), because I know God placed the answers to all of my questions in those pages. I'll try to share what I learn as time goes on...